Midland College volleyball coach Tammie Jimenez has noticed that her team has a flair for the dramatic.

On Wednesday night, the Lady Chaparrals were pushed to a fifth game by New Mexico Military Institute, but they were able to finish strong and close out a 25-21, 19-25, 25-23, 21-25, 15-10 victory at Chaparral Center to remain unbeaten in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference.

MC sophomore outside hitter Brittany Serrano was happy with the nail-biting victory, but knows that her team has some work to do.

“I think we started off really strong but we need to work on the middle games,” said Serrano, whose team improved to 6-11 overall and 3-0 in the WJCAC. “We need to finish when we’re on top and stop letting teams come back. We need to pound on them and put them down quick.”

After winning the first game, the Lady Broncos (17-12, 0-1) came out strong in the second game by scoring the first five points of the game and never let up.

NMMI again came out strong in the third game, but this time the Lady Chaps battled back and scored the last four points to take a 2-1 advantage in the match.

“I think we just got too relaxed and we got too satisfied with what we did in the first game that we just gave it to them,” Serrano said. “(In the end) we fought. We just wanted it really bad.”

Jimenez said the Lady Broncos originally caught her team off-guard by coming out at a much slower pace than first expected.

“But then in the second set, (the Lady Broncos) came out and hammered, and waled and did everything we were anticipating originally,” Jimenez said. “So, we had to change the tempo of our game. We made the setter switch and I think (Breanna Ruble) did a great job of coming and making a difference offensively.

After NMMI forced the fifth game, the Lady Chaps had their strongest start of the night when they jumped out to a 10-2 advantage. The Lady Broncos battled back to close to within 13-10 but Sarah Sawyer and Serrano ended the threat and the match by picking up the last two kills.

“We knew we had to jump out early and not give up easy points,” Jimenez said. “We knew if we shut down NMMI offensively on their attacks, their next option was to go to tipping. Putting up blocks early in that set was also a big momentum changer.”

Ruble finished with 27 assists, Keli-Key Wilson had a team-high 22 digs, Serrano added 10 kills and 12 digs, and Dragana Cvoric was her usual strong self by leading MC with 21 kills to go with 17 digs.

“The girls made it a mission that they wanted to be 3-0 by the end of the night,” Jimenez said. “It’s not a cushion but it just gives us a better sense of confidence in who were are as a team. We’re not going to look back and we’re going to keep on rolling.”

Serrano said while the victory was huge for her team, she knows that there will be plenty of WJCAC matches down the road that could be just like this one as the conference is as even as it has ever been.

“We just need to keep pushing,” she said. “We can’t get satisfied. We can’t take anyone for granted because anyone can be on that night.”

Midland College will take a break from WJCAC play this weekend when it hosts the Midland College Invitational.